Amnesia
by Faithios
Summary: Julia Madison has the career she's always wanted, but when odd events begin popping up at Arkham where she works, her curious nature may just be the end of her-in more than one way. This is the story of how Julia Madison becomes "Amnesia."
1. Chapter 1

"...Dad, I'll be fine," Julia said, checking her watch Monday morning. "I know it's Gotham, but this is what I love doing - and I always have a knife in my glove compartment in case I'm in danger and can't call the police. But I really need to get going. Maybe you or Mom could call me back tonight? Alright. Love you too!" She hung up her phone hastily, grabbing her purse and folder and heading for Arkham.

It started out as a normal day, although normal didn't have to mean pleasant - overly confident criminals in colorful outfits being forced into uniforms, the defiant screams, and the horror stories about the place the other residents in her group loved to tell during break, most of which Julia fervently hoped were mere rumors. But even so, she still wanted to prove to her parents that she could do it.

But she was surprised at how some of the patients seemed more jumpy than usual when she and the others made their daily rounds. More...fearful.

Maybe she would try to ask the head administrator if he'd noticed anything different before she would leave for the night, since she knew what an expert on fear he was. She would probably find him in the library there in Arkham, and sure enough, she found her boss at a table in the library reading a book about the many phobias of the mind. She greatly respected Dr. Crane, especially since she knew not many bosses were as passive and patient as he was.

"What brings you here, Ms. Madison?" Dr. Crane asked without seeming to even look up from his book.

"Hello, Doctor. I was wondering if you noticed a difference in the patients' behavior today?"

"Oh, definitely. Why do you ask?" He now looked up at her.

_Well, you are kind of the head administrator. Shouldn't you care about that kind of thing? _But she didn't want to press him, so all she said was, "I just thought I'd bring it up just in case. We like to keep you posted."

"Well, thank you for your concern," he said, closing his book and standing up to put it back on its shelf.

Just then noticing the title, she asked, "So, find anything interesting in there?"

"Fear in itself interests me," the doctor said quietly with a foreign look on his face, as if he had a lot on his mind.

"...Which was why I wondered if you might know something about this," Julia said before she could stop herself. She hoped she didn't sound accusing.

"I respect the mind's power over the body," he replied easily.

Julia nodded, pretending she understood, but she must have still had a few lines of confusion on her face.

"In other words, don't fear your fear; _embrace _it."

She hesitated. "I guess that makes sense," Julia said, but still wondered how that helped the patients, or if any new drugs they'd been prescribed was interfering with their minds. Well, whether she undertsood or not, she trusted him.

Dr. Crane nodded. "So glad you agree." With that, he bade her good night and walked out.

_I should probably head on home too. _She'd just exited the library when she heard a familiar whiny voice. _Harleen Quinzel. _

"So, Jules, how's your boyfriend?"

"Good-_bye, _Harleen," Julia said, shaking her head.

"Wait up!" Harleen ran up beside her.

Julia looked at her, cocking her head to one side condescendingly. "Why would you say something like that?" Julia asked honestly. "I went to ask him about the patients. It's just kind of strange that these guys would be making threats to us from their cells one day and be shaking and staring quietly the next."

"Aw well, either way, I saw the way you smiled at him." Harleen flashed her hands in front of her and Julia grandly. "I can see it now! Julia and Jonathan -"

"Good night, Harleen!" Julia said quickly, making her way to the elevator. She wondered how someone in their twenties who still acted twelve could have made it into the profession of psychiatry so easily.

"Agh! Make it stop! _Make it stop!_" came the voice of a male patient nearby.

Julia felt a shudder of sympathy for him and all the other patients as the elevator doors closed in front of her. But she would _not _suspect her own boss, and she wouldn't tell her parents either; they would merely say like so many times before how afraid they were that she "couldn't handle it."


	2. Chapter 2

Things only got stranger the next day.

"Please lady, they're eating me! They'll kill me if you don't make them go away!" a female patient pleaded.

"Shh. It's alright. We'll make them go away," Julia reassured her patient soothingly, despite the fact nothing was on her.

"I'll get her a tranquilizer," one of the other interns said.

"That would probably be best," Julia replied.

"Will it make these _things _get off me?!" the patient asked frantically.

"Yes, it will," Julia reassured again. "They'll be gone soon. Now I want you to look at me, nothing else. I'm right here."

The patient quieted down eventually, but she kept looking frantically around her cell, from side to side, until finally the tranquilizer did what it was supposed to, and her eyes slowly closed.

"Something's wrong," Julia said, shaking her head.

"We all know that," a male doctor in the group, named Dave, said.

"I'm going to try again," Julia said. "Maybe I can get Crane to change their prescriptions."

"I think you should wait until break time to do that," he cautioned.

"Well, this _is _kind of important," she said.

But when she hurried up to his office, he didn't answer her knocks on the door. _Maybe he's finally off doing something about these recent events, _Julia thought, but something prevented her from turning away and re-joining her co-workers.

She looked both ways, and when she saw the hallway was clear except for her, she silently opened the door and stepped into the empty and surprisingly cozy office, complete with a velvet rug, an organized desk and a shelf full of books. The books were mainly works by Edgar Allan Poe, plus a few by Shakespeare - not as many psychological non-fiction books as she'd expected to see, though there were some on the bottom shelf.

_Now I'M the one acting twelve. I should really be helping those people, _Julia thought as she moved on to his desk. Harleen was wrong, though; she didn't "like" him, she just wanted to know more about him, things that she could never ask him herself but things she had to know, like why he was so into fear but yet had such a calm demeanor about him.

Something suddenly caught her eye when she looked down at his briefcase under the desk. She bent down to touch the odd material sticking out of the closed briefcase, and saw it was what looked like worn burlap.

_No, Julia, no... _But yet she still stubbornly unlatched the briefcase to find it was some kind of...

But she didn't have a chance to finish her thought about what it could possibly be. "Can I help you?"

Blood rushed to her face, and she made herself get up and turn around to face him. "I can explain this," she said, while trying to make her heart slow down to its normal pace.

"Oh, well, please do then," Dr. Crane said, eyebrows raised.

"I'm...I'm..." _Oh, real smooth, Madison. _"I know I shouldn't be in here, but..." Suddenly, a good answer came to her, even if it was a lie. Right now her job could be on the line. "I thought one of your books might have some advice to help our patients," she said quickly.

"And you thought my briefcase might have something as well?"

"Oh...well, when I looked away from the bookshelf I couldn't help but notice some material sticking out of there and..." The back of her head and the palms of her hands tingled. "Please don't fire me," she said in a near whisper. "I'm sorry."

"Curiosity is a normal thing," he replied, going around his desk and closing the suitcase back; she noticed he was extra careful this time to make sure the rough cloth didn't stick out. "And you may have a slight neurotic problem yourself," he added with a small laugh. "I won't _fire _you."

She couldn't have been more relieved. "Thank you...I promise I'll never do it again."

Dr. Crane smiled. "I know you won't."

Even as she hopped from patient to patient after catching up with her peers (and Harleen asking her with a smirk why her visit to the office took so long), desperately trying to calm each of their patients down and assure them that the things they saw weren't real, she kept thinking to herself, _Why did I have to be so stupid? I really got off lucky this time. _

Her stomach fluttered even more during break when she got to the table where she and the others usually sat, and she saw a note waiting for her.

_Ms. Madison, _

_ Meet me at the coffee shop when your shift ends, and I'll tell you everything you need to know. _

_-Crane_

Julia knew there were tons of coffee shops in Gotham City, but knew which one he was talking about. Many times she'd driven past the one nearest to Arkham where employees often liked to go after work for one more burst of energy when they weren't quite ready to turn in for the night.

She quickly pocketed the note, thinking she was still alone, but Dave and Velonda, a friend of hers at Arkham, saw anyway.

"What was that?" Velonda asked.

"Please don't let Harleen see," Julia said with a half-hearted smile. "Just because I went to the library last night to ask Crane about the patients' behavior, she now thinks we're lovebirds."

Velonda just laughed, but Dave shuddered. "Well I'm glad you're not, because sometimes I don't know about him. The way he keeps his sentences so short and cut, and the way he looks at people out of the corners of his eyes..."

"I'm sure he's a good person," Julia said, waving away his worries. "I mean, I think they check people's backgrounds and records before letting them become chief administrator of a place like this."

"But what did that note say? I mean, if you don't mind telling us," Velonda said carefully.

"Oh, he just wanted to meet me at the coffee shop tonight after work."

Velonda and Dave shared glances.

Julia sighed. "Please, not you too. I assure you it's a business meeting, _not _a date."

Harleen waltzed in not long after Julia had said that, and she put a quick finger to the lips to signal her friends to say no more on the matter.

But still, Dave whispered across the table, "I'd take a weapon of some sort just in case. Something about this just doesn't seem right."

He sounded just like her father, but then again, Dave's words were none too comforting to think about. Maybe she would, maybe she wouldn't.


	3. Chapter 3

Today had been even busier than yesterday, and Julia felt as if she could fall asleep right where she was standing. Having originally planned to go straight home to her warm apartment and curl up on the couch in front of a funny movie, coffee sounded good given the circumstances.

"Be careful, okay?" Dave had warned her.

"I will," Julia said with a weary laugh, despite the fact his face looked "as serious as a heart attack," as her mother always said.

When she got in her car, she tuned the radio to the loudest rock station she could find. It may not be all that pleasant to her ears, but it would keep her awake until she reached the cafe.

After finding a parking space and turning the car off, she opened her glove compartment and stared at the sharp steak knife, unable to get Dave's words out of her mind. _Dr. Crane would never hurt me, and besides, if I was caught with one of these things in here..._

Julia took one look at the coffee shop, and another look at the streets around her. _But then again, in a place like Gotham, who knows when you might need it? Nobody said I'd actually use it on HIM._ She subtly pocketed the knife in one of the spacious pockets of her doctor's coat, cushioning it with a couple of tissues so it wouldn't show through the material, and entered the coffee shop.

She found Dr. Crane easily, since he was the only customer at the moment wearing a suit. He nodded to her by way of greeting, and she joined him after ordering herself an espresso.

"You've probably had a lot of questions lately, Julia," Dr. Crane began, taking a sip of his own coffee.

"But that doesn't make what I did today right," she said guiltily.

"Well, either way, you'll have your answers. So, go ahead, ask me a question." He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

His eyes seemed to twinkle slightly, but that was probably just Julia's imagination. "Well...first off, I _was_ kind of wondering about what I found earlier - that burlap material sticking out of your briefcase."

His eyes twinkled even more, and Julia realized it hadn't been her imagination so much. "I was hoping you would ask that, since that is why we're here," he said. "That material is actually my mask."

"Your...what?"

"My mask. I often use it as a form of therapy when I go in to talk to the patients."

Julia laughed. "Come on now. Halloween was over weeks ago." But she clamped her mouth shut when she saw that he didn't laugh in return.

Dr. Crane shrugged. "I know that it would seem..._ludicrous_ to a lot of people, but it's actually very effective. They know their own fears more than they ever have."

_But why would he want to _enhance_ their fears?_ "Oh... Maybe I do understand now. It provides a form of ventilation for them, right?"

"Well, if you wanted to call it that, I guess you could. I could show you how it works later, if you'd like."

Julia hesitated, but then nodded. "Sure. A picture's worth a thousand words. But...you mean tonight?"

"No time like the present," he said simply.

She _was_ starting to feel a lot better since that coffee kicked in... "I guess so," she said gamely, and she was glad she could rest assured that Dr. Crane really did know what he was doing and that the patients were probably just letting their feelings out. At least that's what she hoped was the case.

"Only it can't be here," he said, lowering his voice.

"Why not?" Julia asked.

"You know how people are these days." He looked off to the side at other customers nearby to prove his point. "They could think I was hurting you or...you know. Better to be safe than sorry."

"Right..." She patted the knife in her pocket under the table - just in case, she'd said. Just in case.

"But before we do, anything else you want to clear up?"

"Yes, actually," Julia said with an almost nervous laugh, trying to relax. That coffee may have done too good a job of perking her up. "I mean, not that there's anything wrong with this, but...what made fear such an interest for you?"

He sighed, but she knew it wasn't from frustration or exasperation - just something he did whenever he was deep in thought. Then he told her about how he was an illegitimate child raised by his religious zealot grandmother, who would physically and mentally abuse him on a regular basis. He'd also been the victim of constant teasing at school because of his spindly frame and the old-fashioned clothing his grandmother made him wear. "I recall that 'Scarecrow' was their favorite name for me, but there were many others."

Julia had a hard time swallowing her last sips of espresso. She'd heard many stories like this from patients before, but this felt different somehow.

"Fear is the main factor in abusive situations, but it was an emotion I came to accept," Dr. Crane went on, as calm as could be. "I told myself I would never be afraid of or give in to another human being as long as I lived."

"Doctor...I'm sorry." She was so disturbed by his story that she reached across the table and gave his hand a squeeze. She wanted to go back to her car and put that knife away - or better yet break it in half, if she could do such a thing.

Dr. Crane smiled at her and squeezed back. "Just say Jonathan. We're not at work, after all."

Julia couldn't stop herself from smiling back. Maybe, just maybe, she really did feel a little more than just curiosity towards him.

Jonathan finished his coffee, then exhaled contentedly. "So, does that answer everything?"

"I think so," Julia nodded slowly.

"But what about you, Julia?"

"Me? What do you-"

"What are you _afraid_ of?" He leaned forward on his knuckles.

She could answer that right away. "Carousel horses - especially at night. There's just something about their painted faces and wild eyes that makes them look...bloodthirsty. And I'm also terrified of heights."

Jonathan nodded understandingly. After a thoughtful pause he said, "We'd best head out, then. We'll just take my car." He hadn't asked her, but simply stated it.

As they walked out of the heated building and into the cold windy night, Julia began to wonder if she wanted to see this little demonstration of his after all.  
>She would have to make a decision about whether or not to trust him, and make it fast.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>So what do you guys think he's going to do? Will Julia listen to Dave's warnings? o.o <strong>

**Disclaimer (which I should have put earlier): I only own Julia, Velonda and Dave. Everything else belongs to DC. **


	4. Chapter 4

"I'm a busy man, Julia. I don't have all night," Jonathan said when he saw Julia lagging behind.

"Oh, well, I'd hate to take up your time," Julia replied with a bit of spite in her voice. She was really unsure what to think of him at this point, but yet after hearing his story she was more reluctant than ever to speak her mind any more than she already had. So she followed him to the car, wondering what to say or do next.

"Get in."

Before she could give a firm no and try to reason with him, she was practically shoved into the back seat of the car, and she realized she no longer had her purse. She looked around frantically. Then she heard the bang of the trunk being closed.

"Don't worry. I sat it in the trunk for you." Jonathan gave her a tight smile and slid into the driver's seat in front of her.

She didn't care about her purse anymore. She started to bolt out of the car...only to find the doors on both sides had safety locks on them. She looked out the rear window. Hadn't anybody nearby seen an innocent woman just get shoved into a car against her will?

Julia's breathing quickened and her mind raced, but she didn't cry or scream. "I have to be honest with you-you are really starting to creep me out," she said, meeting his eyes.

Jonathan laughed condescendingly, like a parent to a child who'd just asked for a second bowl of ice cream. "You're the one who wanted to see how my mask works. So don't blame me if you get more than a little freaked out tonight."

Julia tried one more time. "Please, can I just give Dave a quick call?"

Jonathan tilted his head and blinked. "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to make phonecalls when you're already with somebody?"

Julia was unsure what to say to that.

"So why would you want to call him? He seemed a little...interfering when I talked to him last. Wanted to know why I wanted to see you, why we were going to a coffee shop at this time of night, things like that."

Julia's heart sped up. "It'll only take a minute. I just wanted to remind him about something." The number she really wanted to call was only three numbers long and started with a 9 and ended with a 11, and Julia remembered her earlier conversation with Dave with a sharp pang and how stupid she had been today.

"That won't be necessary. You'll see him soon," Jonathan replied as he started the car.

_What have you DONE with him?! _Julia nearly burst out, but knew full well from experience not to show fear or anger when being threatened, but to simply try to stay on the person's good side until she got access to something better.

_Let's see, he loves talking about this "mask" of his. Maybe I'll try that, then I could get my knife out once he stops the car. And if he's seriously trying to kidnap me, then I could try to get to his keys and unlock the trunk to get my phone. _Her heart skipped a beat as she felt for her knife. It was still there, and Julia hid her relief. "The names that those kids called you...is that why your mask looked kind of like-"

"A scarecrow? You might say that," he said nonchalantly, buckling up. "Now, that old abandoned amusement park shouldn't be far..."

At this point Julia highly doubted the purpose for this excursion was to cure her of her fears. "Doctor-I mean, Jonathan..." She forced a smile, trying to keep the anxiety out of her voice. "You don't have to do all this."

"But I _want_ to, Julia. I like to be able to _enlighten_ others whenever I can." He looked at her in the rearview mirror, and he looked almost smug. "Trust me...you won't ask another question after tonight."

This didn't sound good at all. Why else would he be doing this other than to...? She couldn't finish the thought. Any other person in her situation would have been screaming and banging on the doors, but not Julia-even though she wanted to more than anything. _Just wait for the car to stop, then make your move. _

Julia watched as the bright lights and skyscrapers were gradually replaced with walls covered in graffiti and dilapidated buildings that might have once served an honest purpose. She thought of Fortunato from that short Edgar Allan Poe story, _The Cask of Amontillado, _and wondered if she'd just been tricked in a very similar way.

Soon the silhouette of a Ferris wheel came into view when she peered out of her right window. Would there be no easier ways out of this?

Jonathan parked the car next to an abandoned gas station and then opened one of the back doors after he got out. Reluctantly, Julia slid out, hugging herself from the cold that came from both the late autumn weather and the feeling inside her chest.

"I can assure you of one thing, Julia," he said, keeping a firm hand on her shoulder while unlocking his trunk with his free hand. "My childhood story may seem terrible, but it does have a happy ending, and it went something like this..." He opened the famous briefcase and took out his mask, which he pulled over his head, and a needle. "Fortunately you won't need much of this, since that caffeine has probably already gotten your heart pumping somewhat."

"Doctor Crane...why are you doing this?" Julia bit her lip and tasted blood. "I never agreed to taking anything. Please, let's just go back. I'll never bother you again."

"Doctor Crane isn't here right now, but if you'd like to make an appointment..."

Julia jerked away in one frantic motion, but not before he injected the needle into her shoulder.


End file.
